as a pain
that seized me when I learned from Roland that he had become intimate
at Compton Hall. Roland and Lord Rainsforth had met at the house of
a neighboring gentleman, and Lord Rainsforth had welcomed his
acquaintance, at first, perhaps, for my sake, afterwards for his own.

"I could not for the life of me," continued my father, "ask Roland if he
admired Ellinor; but when I found that he did not put that question to
me, I trembled!

"We went to Compton together, speaking little by the way. We stayed
there some days."

My father here thrust his hand into his waistcoat. All men have their
little ways, which denote much; and when my father thrust his hand into
his waistcoat, it was always a sign of some mental effort,--he was going
to prove or to argue, to moralize or to preach. Therefore, though I
was listening before with all my ears, I believe I had, speaking
magnetically and mesmerically, an extra pair of ears, a new sense
supplied to me, when my father put his hand into his waistcoat.

CHAPTER VI.

"There is not a mystical creation, type, symbol, or poetical invention
for meanings abtruse, recondite, and incomprehensible which is not
represented by the female gender," said my father, having his hand quite
buried in his waistcoat. "For instance, the Sphinx and Isis, whose veil
no man had ever lifted, were both ladies, Kitty! And so was Persephone,
who must be always either in heaven or hell; and Hecate, who was one
thing by night and another by day. The Sibyls were females, and so
were the Gorgons, the Harpies, the Furies, the Fates, and the Teutonic
Valkyrs, Nornies, and Hela herself; in short, all representations of
ideas obscure, inscrutable, and portentous, are nouns feminine."

Heaven bless my father! Augustine Caxton was himself again! I began to
fear that the story had slipped away from him, lost in that labyrinth of
learning. But luckily, as he paused for breath, his look fell on those
limpid blue eyes of my mother, and that honest open brow of hers,
which had certainly nothing in common with Sphinxes, Fates, Furies, or
Valkyrs; and whether his heart smote him, or his reason made him
own that he had fallen into a very disingenuous and unsound train
of assertion, I know not, but his front relaxed, and with a smile he
resumed: "Ellinor was the last person in the world to deceive any one
willingly. Did she deceive me and Roland, that we both, though not
conceited men, fancied that, if we had dare